Recommended Reading from Community Partners

The following books have been suggested by our staff and community partners as resources to learn about the importance of CEnR and the negative historical impact of medicine on communities of color.

Cover of Bad Blood by James H. Jones

By James H. Jones

ISBN: 0029166764

Publication Date: 1992-12-05

An account of the experiment performed on unknowing black sharecroppers describes how the U.S. Public Health Service allowed the syphilis in the sharecroppers to take its course without treatment and explains how such a tragedy occurred.

Cover of Black Man in a White Coat by Damon Tweedy

By Damon Tweedy

ISBN: 9781250044631

Publication Date: 2015-09-08

Black Man in a White Coat examines the complex ways in which both black doctors and patients must navigate the difficult and often contradictory terrain of race and medicine.

Cover of Braving the Wilderness by Brene Brown

By Brené Brown

ISBN: 0812995848

Publication Date: 2017-09-12

“True belonging doesn’t require us to change who we are. It requires us to be who we are.” Social scientist Brené Brown, PhD, LMSW, has sparked a global conversation about the experiences that bring meaning to our lives—experiences of courage, vulnerability, love, belonging, shame, and empathy. In Braving the Wilderness, Brown redefines what it means to truly belong in an age of increased polarization.

Cover of The Debt by Randall Robinson

By Randall Robinson

ISBN: 0452282101

Publication Date: 2001-01-01

In this powerful and controversial book, distinguished African-American political leader and thinker Randall Robinson argues for the restoration of the rich history that slavery and segregation severed.

Cover of The Emperor of All Maladies by Siddhartha Mukherjee

By Siddhartha Mukherjee

ISBN: 1439170916

Publication Date: 2011-08-09

Winner of the Pulitzer Prize, and now a documentary from Ken Burns on PBS, The Emperor of All Maladies is a magnificent, profoundly humane “biography” of cancer—from its first documented appearances thousands of years ago through the epic battles in the twentieth century to cure, control, and conquer it to a radical new understanding of its essence.

Cover of Exploring Diversity, Equity, Inclusion, and Health Equity Commitments and Approaches by Health Organization C-Suites

By National Academies of Sciences, Engineering, and Medicine; Health and Medicine Division; Board on Population Health and Public Health Practice; Roundtable on the Promotion of Health Equity; Rose-Marie Martinez (Editor); Ronique Taffe (Editor); Joe Alper (Editor)

Call Number: DOI 10.17226/27458

ISBN: 9780309715041

Publication Date: 2024-10-16

Between 2020-2023, many health systems and organizations created formal positions to improve diversity, equity, and inclusion (DEI) and health equity in response to social and health injustices and public demands for diversity and equity among executive level leadership. The National Academies Roundtable on the Promotion of Health Equity hosted an October 2023 public hybrid workshop to explore the successes and challenges of DEI and health equity C-suites, dimensions of DEI and health equity commitments, strategies for achieving internal and external goals, and potential metrics for measuring success.

Link to book

Cover of The Immortal Life of Henrietta Lacks by Rebecca Skloot

By Rebecca Skloot

ISBN: 1400052181

Publication Date: 2011-03-08

Her name was Henrietta Lacks, but scientists know her as HeLa. She was a poor black tobacco farmer whose cells—taken without her knowledge in 1951—became one of the most important tools in medicine, vital for developing the polio vaccine, cloning, gene mapping, and more.

Cover of Medical Apartheid by Harriet A. Washington

By Harriet A. Washington

ISBN: 076791547X

Publication Date: 2008-01-08

From the era of slavery to the present day, the first full history of black America’s shocking mistreatment as unwilling and unwitting experimental subjects at the hands of the medical establishment.

Cover of The Practical Playbook

By J. Lloyd Michener (Editor), Denise Koo (Editor), Brian C. Castrucci (Editor), James B. Sprague (Editor)

ISBN: 0190222147

Publication Date: 2015-10-30

Drawing on the experiences of hundreds of public health and primary care clinicians from across the United States, this book explains why population health is receiving so much attention from policy makers in states and federal agencies; the practical steps that clinicians and public health professionals can take to work together to meet the needs of their community; signs that you are on the right track (or not); and how to sustain successes to the benefit of patients, community members, and the health care and public health teams that care for them.

Cover of The Practical Playbook II

By J. Lloyd Michener (Editor); Don W. Bradley (Editor); Brian C. Castrucci (Editor); Elizabeth Corcoran (Editor); Edward L. Hunter (Editor); Catherine Patterson (Editor); Craig W. Thomas (Editor)

ISBN: 0190936010

Publication Date: 2019-05-21

The Practical Playbook II is the first resource to elucidate what works (and what doesn't) when it comes to collaborating for change in and around health. It brings together voices of experience and authority to answer this topic's most challenging questions and provide guideposts for applying what they've learned to today's thorniest problems.

Cover of The Practical Playbook III

By Dorothy Cilenti (Editor); Alisahah Jackson (Editor); Natalie D. Hernandez (Editor); Lindsey Yates (Editor); Sarah Verbiest (Editor); J. Lloyd Michener (Editor); Brian C. Castrucci (Editor)

Call Number: DOI: 10.1093/oso/9780197662984.001.0001

ISBN: 9780197662984

Publication Date: 2024-02-20

This book marks the third in the Practical Playbook series, following The Practical Playbook: Public Health and Primary Care Together (2015) and The Practical Playbook II: Building Multisector Partnerships That Work (2019). The theme of the first two volumes was not to coalesce and repackage existing research but to provide a timely core resource for more effective engagement and action for pressing frontline challenges. This third volume applies the same lens to one of our society’s most pressing issues—the health of women and birthing people, infants, and children. While it differs from the previous playbooks by focusing on a specific population, the spirit of what is included is completely aligned: across all three volumes, the need for partnership and collaboration between different sectors, systems change to realize the true impact, and continued innovation remains a constant theme.

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Cover of Unequal Treatment by Institute of Medicine Staff

By Institute of Medicine Staff; Board on Health Sciences Policy Staff; Understanding and Eliminating Racial and Ethnic Disparities in Health Care Committee; Alan R. Nelson (Editor); Adrienne Y. Stith (Editor); Brian D. Smedley (Editor)

ISBN: 9780309085328

Publication Date: 2002-11-02

Racial and ethnic disparities in health care are known to reflect access to care and other issues that arise from differing socioeconomic conditions. There is, however, increasing evidence that even after such differences are accounted for, race and ethnicity remain significant predictors of the quality of health care received.